Sinuosities - VI

Espen Gleditsch
Faded Remains (Narcissus)
2017
pigment print
KORO (Public Art Norway), Oslo

Eugène Carrière
Figure Study
ca. 1890
oil on canvas
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

Claes Bäckström
Undressing
1962
drawing
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Marco Aggrate
Mary Magdalen
ca. 1700
marble
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Otto Dix
Portrait of Karl Krall
1923
oil on canvas
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg
Study of the model Florentine
1841
oil on canvas
Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen

Jean-François Millet
Seated Model
ca. 1847-48
oil on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Anders Petersen
Rome
(series, City Diary)
ca. 1982
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Francis Bacon
Double Portrait of Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach
1964
oil on canvas
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Giulio Bonasone
Danaë and the Shower of Gold
ca. 1545
engraving
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Moise Benkow
Sorrow
1933
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Antonio Canova
Pauline (Bonaparte) Borghese as Venus
1804-1808
marble
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Edgar Degas
Le Lever
ca. 1880-85
monotype
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo

Charles Paul Landon
Venus and Cupid
1810
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nice

Håkon Bleken
Christian
1977
oil on canvas
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo

Agostino Carracci
Venus and Cupid
ca. 1599
drawing
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

And then I took my first taste of the Nile, unadulterated by wine, to see how sweet that water was; for water wanes when wine intervenes.  I scooped some up in a clear glass goblet and watched the water and its vessel compete for clarity: the glass lost.  The water was sweet and cold, though not unpleasantly cold – I know some comparable streams in Greece whose cold can cut your tongue.  Accordingly the people of Egypt are not afraid to drink this water neat, disdaining Dionysos.  And I was struck, too, by their drinking style: they scorn all use of bucket or cup, when nature has fashioned a drinking instrument right at hand – the hand.  If anyone is cruising down the stream, and feels a little thirsty, he pokes his head over the side, leans towards the water, lowers hand, forms cup, aims a fistful mouth-wards, and launches it on target – the gaping mouth awaits the shot, receives it, closes, and doesn't spill a drop. 

– Achilles Tatius, from Leucippe and Clitophon (2nd century AD), translated from Greek by John J. Winkler (1989)

Claes Oldenburg

Claes Oldenburg
Store Window - Yellow Shirt, Red Bow-Tie
1961
watercolor and crayon on paper
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Claes Oldenburg
Ice box
1963
watercolor and crayon on paper
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Claes Oldenburg
Study for a Soft Sculpture
in the form of a Giant Lipstick
1967
watercolor and crayon on paper
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Claes Oldenburg
Proposed Colossal Monument
for End of Navy Pier, Chicago - Bed Table Lamp
1967
watercolor and crayon on paper
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Claes Oldenburg
Giant Fireplug sited in Civic Center, Chicago
1968
watercolor and crayon on paper
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Claes Oldenburg
Fire-Plug Souvenir
(August - Chicago - 1968)
1968
painted plaster
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Claes Oldenburg
Typewriter Erasers - Position Studies
1970
watercolor and colored pencil on paper
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Claes Oldenburg
Self Portrait
1971
lithograph
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Claes Oldenburg
Hats - Vesuvius
1973
lithograph
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Claes Oldenburg
Typewriter Eraser as Tornado
1973
offset-lithograph (exhibition poster)
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Claes Oldenburg
Colossal Eraser on Alcatraz Island
1976
lithograph
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Claes Oldenburg
Floating Three-Way Plug
1976
etching and aquatint
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Claes Oldenburg
Screw Arch Bridge
1981
aquatint, monotype and etching
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Claes Oldenburg
Proposal for a Civic Monument
in the Form of Two Windows
1982
lithograph
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Anonymous photographer for Leo Castelli Gallery
Claes Oldenburg and Leo Castelli
ca. 1985
gelatin silver print
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC

Claes Oldenburg
Soft Pencil Sharpener
1989
lithograph
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

An Abdication

First I looked at water. It was good.

Blue oblongs glinted from afar. From close

I saw it moving, hueless, clear

Down to a point past which nothing was clear

Or moving, and I had to close

My eyes. The water had done little good.

A second day I tried the trees. They stood

In a rich stupor, altogether

Rooted in the poor, the hard, the real.

But then my mind began to reel –

Elsewhere, smoother limbs would grow together.

How should the proffered apple be withstood?

One dusk upon my viewless throne

I realized the housecat's tyrant nature,

Let her features small and grave

Look past me as into their shallow grave.

No animal could keep me from a nature

Which existed to be overthrown.

Man at last, the little that I own

Is not long for this world. My cousin's eye

Lights on a rust-red, featherweight

Crown of thoughts. He seems to wait

For me to lift it from my brow (as I

Now do) and place it smartly on his own.  

– James Merrill (1969)

Frieseke - Simmons - Albers - Oliveira

Frederick Carl Frieseke
The Basket of Flowers
ca. 1913-17
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

 

Frederick Carl Frieseke
The Bird-Cage
ca. 1910
oil on canvas
New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut

Frederick Carl Frieseke
In the Boudoir
ca. 1914
oil on canvas
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Frederick Carl Frieseke
The Window
ca. 1915
oil on canvas
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Frederick Carl Frieseke
Through the Vines
ca. 1908
oil on canvas
Akron Art Museum, Ohio

Laurie Simmons
Blond, Red Dress, Kitchen
1978
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Laurie Simmons
Woman, Purple Dress, Kitchen
1978
C-print
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Laurie Simmons
Woman watching Television
1978
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Laurie Simmons
New Bathroom, Woman Kneeling, First View
1979
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Laurie Simmons
New Bathroom, Aerial View, Sunlight
1979
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Josef Albers
Frau Lewandowski: München
1930
gelatin silver print
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Josef Albers
Untitled (Corpus Christi, Texas - Carousel)
1937
gelatin silver print
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Josef Albers
Study for Homage to the Square: Consent
1971
oil on panel
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Josef Albers
Homage to the Square: Ascending
"Eggs for Breakfast"
1953
oil on panel
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Josef Albers
Homage to the Square: Apparition
1959
oil on panel
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Nathan Oliveira
Bather I
1959
oil on linen
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Nathan Oliveira
Italian Sentinel
1959
oil on canvas
Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, California

Nathan Oliveira
Jumping Dog
1962
oil on linen
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Nathan Oliveira
London Site 6
1984
monotype
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Nathan Oliveira
Man with a Hat, Cane and Gloves
1959
oil on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

River Poem

This old man had lavender skin, a handkerchief

Toppling from his breastpocket like an iris.

We on the riverbank watched the gracing rowers

Leaving the shore and watched him watch them leave,

And Charles said: I wonder if they mean to him

As much as I can imagine they mean to him.

Charles was like that. But as evening became 

A purple element we stayed there wondering

About the old man – talking of other things,

For although the old man, by the time we all went home,

Had moved away he stayed there wandering

Like a river-flower, thinking of rivery things

(We supposed) well into the twilight. We would never

Know, this we knew, how much it had meant to him –

Oars, violet water, laughter on the stream.

Though we knew, Charles said, just how much he meant to the river. 

For he moved away, leaving us there on the grass,

But the river did not vanish, or not then at least.

– James Merrill (1951)